


Mixing Light to Light

by rei_c



Series: The Four Quartets [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blasphemy, Bloodplay, Branding, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Public Sex, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-05
Updated: 2007-04-05
Packaged: 2018-07-16 01:59:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7247581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rei_c/pseuds/rei_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a goddess traps Sam and Dean in a game with rules they don’t understand and an ending they don’t see coming, what other choice do they have but to play?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_29 June_

“Ash sent us an email,” Sam says, the second Dean walks out of the bathroom. 

Dean’s wearing a pair of jeans that have definitely seen better days and scrubbing wet hair with a towel, and he comes over to where Sam’s sitting at a rickety old motel table, looks over Sam’s shoulder and reads the email, ignoring Sam’s put-upon sigh. 

“Minnesota?” Dean finally says, and the word hangs in the air for a minute. Neither of them have been back to the state since Pastor Jim died, two years ago; actually, not many hunters at all go up there now. “Where’s,” he starts to ask, and leans forward slightly, says, “Calumet?” 

Sam knows that Dean’s really asking a question, wants to know where Calumet is in relation to Blue Earth, wants to know how close they’ll be to Jim’s old parish, and Sam clicks over to Google Maps, shows Dean that Calumet’s north of Blue Earth, practically on the other side of the state, sitting an hour northwest of Duluth. 

“Huh,” Dean says. 

“Ash says the ghost, haunting, whatever, it comes in cycles,” Sam says, while Dean’s digging through his duffel for a clean t-shirt. Sam looks over his shoulder, wrinkles his nose as Dean sniff-checks the first shirt he pulls out, and then rolls his eyes, turns back to the email. “They’ve just seen it, so it shouldn’t be back for a month or so. We’ve got time, if we want to take it.”

Dean’s disappeared back into the bathroom, leans around the corner with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and a spot of toothpaste on his chin. “Yeah, we’ll take it. Work our way up, what d’you think?” 

Sam looks outside the window and sees heat shimmering like a blanket, hears the rattle and roar of the air conditioner going full-blast two feet from his face, and thinks about leaving Georgia and heading up north for the summer. 

“Sounds like a plan.”

 

_16 July_

Sam holds the gun steady, and when the wolf gets ready to leap, mouth open and claws extended, Sam shoots. The silver bullet hits the wolf square between the eyes and once it’s fallen, Sam gets up and spends another bullet into its heart before getting any closer. After he’s convinced that the wolf is dead and not just faking it, the gun lowers and Sam rubs his shoulder, wincing. 

“Shit,” he mutters; it feels dislocated, needs to be popped back into place, and Dean’s half-unconscious after being thrown into a tree, not to mention scraped and bleeding, having narrowly missed being decapitated by the wolf’s claws. 

With a grimace on his face, muscles spasming in his arm and a distinct feeling of numbness in his fingers, Sam pops the bones back into place and nearly passes out from the wave of nausea that floods through his body, taste of acid in the back of his throat. 

That done, and a quick look at Dean to make sure his brother’s not entirely unconscious, Sam wipes blood out of his eyes and picks up Dean’s knife, cuts the wolf’s head from its body, watches as it turns from beast to man. It reminds him a little too much of Madison, though she was a were and this was a skinwalker. 

Sam presses his lips together as he lights the skinwalker on fire and watches it burn.

“You did good, Sammy,” Dean says, eyes glazed over but still talking, watching from the sidelines, propped against the tree that broke his fall earlier. “Saved our asses. Good on you.” 

“What are we now, Australian?” Sam snipes back, but he’s careful when he picks Dean up, half-carries Dean to the car. 

Dean snickers, and once he’s sitting down, he says, “Could go for a beer, actually. Once I get over this concussion,” and closes his eyes, sleeps on the way back to the motel. 

 

_29 July_

They’re on some back-country highway, just across the Minnesota border, when Dean turns down the music and asks without looking, “So, what’s this whole thing about?” 

Sam’s been doing some half-hearted research on their trip north, half-hearted because, in addition to the skinwalker in Oklahoma, they’ve dealt with a poltergeist, a black dog, and a regeneration hex on a handful of cemeteries in southern Wisconsin on their way to Calumet. Still, he shouldn’t be surprised that Dean knows Sam’s already started looking. 

“I’ve looked at the cycle Ash mentioned, and one of the locals has a blog with the dates as well,” Sam begins, looking at his brother. Dean’s still got a scrape across his throat, but it’s almost gone, nearly faded into the skin like all of the bruises already have. “It’s not lunar, more like every six weeks or so. There’s a pattern, one I’m fairly sure I can predict, but I can’t explain it. The ghost, spirit, whatever it is, should be around for the next five nights. I’ve checked obits, some of the area folklore, but nothing’s jumped out so far.” 

Dean’s nodding, thinking about that as he hangs a right, brakes for a doe and her fawn crossing the state highway, and then speeds up again, thinking. 

“We’ll find a motel, get checked in, start the research tomorrow? I’ll check the graveyards and you can do the interviews. People always talk to you,” Dean says, and Sam shrugs, feels the pull on his shoulder, healed but still aching, and agrees. 

 

_31 July / 1 August_

Sam blinks, tries to shake his head but finds it hurts too much, makes the blood inside of his ears sing. He tries to move, realises he's tied up, and he groans, throwing his head back, expecting to hit wood, stone, anything other than someone else's head. 

”Ow?” he says, wincing at the scratch on his throat, the way the word makes his mouth seize up, teeth knock together. 

”Yeah, ow, fucking right,” comes a low mutter in return. “Anyone ever tell you that your head is _hard_? Because, shit, dude, it is. Hard and huge and don't do that again.” 

Sam grins, can't help it, even if they're stuck in the dark, tied up and pretty much prey for whatever put them here like this, because Dean sounds pissed off, and a pissed off Dean means something's going to burn, and sooner rather than later. 

“Stop smiling,” Dean grumps, twisting; Sam can feel it, which means they must be tied together, somehow, even though his back’s against something hard and fairly flat, wood, maybe, like someone stuck a plank between them. 

“You can’t even see me,” Sam says, shifting just enough to reach for his back pocket, tugging Dean’s hands along with him. 

He reaches in for the paperclip, freezes when he doesn’t find it, because he always keeps one there, just like he always keeps a knife. Situations like this, he expects the knife to be missing, but the paperclip as well? 

That’s not a good sign. 

“Hurry the fuck up already,” Dean growls, and then yanks his hands, pulling Sam’s. Sam yelps, Dean says something about being stuck with a whiny, prissy little bitch, and while Sam’s sputtering, Dean’s trying to find his paperclip. 

It’s not there, either. 

\--

Dean swears for five minutes straight before he finally gives up and says, “What happened?” like he wasn’t down here as well, didn’t traipse down the steps right in front of Sam, didn’t see that black-haired woman come out of freaking nowhere and do _something_ to them. 

“Dean. Woman? Some kind of ridiculously bright light? What part of that did you forget?” Sam asks, exasperated. He’s lost all feeling in his arms, except for where the rope’s tied in some kind of complicated knot and rubbing against his wrists, breaking open the top layer of skin. 

“The part where we can’t explain the light, Sam,” Dean says, twisting more. “What the hell was that? She the ghost we came down here to get? Because if she is, or even if she _isn’t_ , neither of us have salt and the ghost could come after us any second.” 

Sam’s stomach drops, because he’d forgotten all about their hunt, the reason they came down into this old cellar in the first place. 

Ash’s email had been blunt and to the point: there’d been sightings of a woman, dark-haired, around this area off and on for the past year or so, always more at the beginnings and ends of the months. After two fruitless days of research and interviews, Dean had wanted to come out and check the central location to all the hauntings, this cellar on the outskirts of town, which, when they plotted the hauntings on a map, just _happened_ to be in the exact centre of a circle. 

They’d done the research, all the digging through old records and older peoples’ ideas of history, and come up empty-handed. Sam thinks that if Ash hadn’t given them the job, if they’d been passing through and heard about it from one of the kids that won’t shut up about Calumet’s own ghost, they’d be on their way to the next gig by now. 

This, coming down to the cellar after dark, once the forester it belonged to had shut off the main cabin’s lights for the night, was supposed to be an information gathering trip, but they’d gotten into the cellar and after a few seconds of something fluttering in the pit of Sam’s stomach, some knowledge that things were off, that they were in trouble, a woman had appeared in the corner of the room, swiftly followed by a bright, blinding light had knocked them both out. 

“Maybe there wasn’t ever a ghost,” Sam says, squinting, trying to look around in the darkness and make out the edges of the steps up, shelves along the walls, figure out where their guns might’ve ended up. 

“No ghost,” Dean says flatly, and Sam feels Dean’s hands move again, tracing out the knots slowly, knows that Dean’s trying to get a mental image of what they look like. “Sam, everything points to a ghost. Everything. You’re saying whatever threw us for a loop, it wasn’t a ghost?”

Sam huffs, lets his fingers trail over the knot nearest his left hand, nail snagging against the nylon every so often. He’s just about got an idea of it when his stomach starts hurting again, along with his head, this time. 

“Dean,” Sam says, but then the acrid smell of fire, of blood, comes to life all around him, choking the words from his throat. 

He can feel Dean moving, trying to get out, get free, but Sam’s frozen. They make jokes about how he gets these vibes, these impressions of places and things, or, rather, Dean makes jokes and Sam pretends to be offended, but it’s something that’s come in handy once or twice before. What he feels like now, he wants to warn Dean but he can’t, literally can _not_ move, not his mouth, not his throat, not a muscle in his entire body. 

“Sam?” Dean says, low and urgent. “Sam, come on, what’s going on? Talk to me, tell me what you can see.” 

Sam can see everything. The light’s from before has come back, and Sam doesn’t know if it’s affecting Dean as well, but it hurts, far too bright no matter how small Sam’s pupils shrink, but he can’t _blink_. 

Dean says his name again, still trying to get the knots undone, and Sam’s eyes burn, drying out and feeling as if they’re on fire. 

The wooden steps creak, and Dean freezes, then moves faster, panic and frenzy at the edges of his movements, because Dean’s facing the wrong way, can’t see anything that’s happening. Sam’s looking at the stairs, sees the woman as she walks down toward them, getting a glimpse of soft leather shoes, almost moccasin slippers, pale white legs, the worn and tattered edges of a black dress hanging in shreds above her knees, skinny arms with clear outlines of muscle, a spear in one hand and a silver circlet around her neck. 

She reminds him, right away, of that girl from _The Ring_ , or maybe the crazy chick on that show with whatsherface, Gina something, but Sam can’t tear his eyes away. She’s looking right at him as she walks down, sad smile on her face, and he realises, those girls in the movies have nothing on the look in this woman’s eyes, ancient madness and violent passion. 

“Had to be done, had to be done,” she says, almost apologetically, and crouches down in front of Sam, runs a finger down his cheek, nail digging into his skin and letting blood loose into the air. “Two into one,” she murmurs, leans forward and kisses Sam’s temples. 

Sam’s blood freezes, and if he had his voice, he’d be screaming, because it hurts, stings and prickles, like a million tiny icicles are driving through his skin and into his heart. 

“Leave my brother alone, you bitch,” Dean growls, twisting, trying to move. 

The woman smiles, something in the back of her eyes swirling, flowing in and out, and she stands, looks down at Sam, and says, “Fire burn and flare up higher, two and two and two again.” 

Dean’s cursing now, telling her to leave Sam alone, to come and get him, to stop talking in riddles, but she’s not paying attention. Sam’s not either, because he sees something in the back of the woman’s eyes, something that speaks to the gifts in him, the death visions and the strange vibes, and he thinks maybe, just maybe, she’s not a ghost but something bigger, something _older_ , and she’s trying to help them. He wants to ask questions, wants to tell Dean to shut up, but the woman moves, stands to his left, Dean’s right, and touches them both on the chest. 

The light from before comes back, brilliant and blinding, and Sam passes out again to the sound of Dean’s yelling. 

\--

“—ammy? Wake up, man, come on. Don’t make me drag you up those stairs to the car.” 

Sam opens his eyes, groans at the way the light makes his head throb, and turns to the side, coughing a little. His throat’s dry, his eyes still ache, but he’s laying on the ground and Dean’s crouched above him, so they’re out of the knots and they’re both all right. Except, the more Sam thinks about, his chest aches, right where the woman touched him, like an echo of the sting on his cheek, where her nail split his skin. 

He sits up a little too quickly, closes his eyes through the moment of vertigo and piercing nausea, and asks, “What happened to the woman?” 

Dean shrugs, stands up and offers a hand to Sam, who takes it with a nod of thanks and then takes the shotgun Dean’s holding out. “Dunno, but once we get outside, there’s something you need to take a look at.” 

Sam frowns, but Dean doesn’t say anything, just heads for the steps, expecting Sam to follow. With a huff, Sam does, and they walk to the Impala, Dean looking around like he’s expecting ghosts or demons or werewolves to jump out of the pre-dawn forest. 

\--

The shotguns put away, smaller handguns out in case of emergency, Dean finally turns to Sam and says, “Take off your shirt.” Sam raises an eyebrow, but Dean scowls and says, “Come on, I’m not joking,” at the same time he’s pulling his own off. 

Sam takes off his hoodie, then the shirt underneath, and by the time he’s tossing his clothes on the Impala’s trunk, Dean’s naked from the waist up and Sam’s gaping. 

“Yeah, I know,” Dean says, tilting his head back enough to look down at his chest, at a mark that Sam’s never seen before, placed right above Dean’s heart. “But yours matches, so think about that before you go making any jokes.” 

“Mine _what_?” Sam says, before he looks down at his own chest. It looks like he’s been branded, a circle with some kind of triangular symbol inside, black lines over red skin, but skin that seems as if it’s had a decent amount of time in which to heal. 

Sam lifts up one hand, touches the mark, wincing when he does, because it still hurts, shit, but this whole thing has moved from odd to weird to downright creepy in a very small amount of time. 

“It shouldn’t have healed this fast,” Sam says. Dean looks at him, looks stunned, and Sam says, “What?” because his head hurts, his fucking chest hurts, and his brother’s giving him the ‘ _How the fuck can we be related_?’ look. “Dean, there’s no way we should have healed this fast if she gave it to us. How long were we down there, an hour? Two? It should be, I dunno, bleeding or something. We shouldn’t be able to touch it.”

Dean stares for another minute, then shakes his head, starts muttering about idiot younger brothers, hunters who forget about the hunt, people who need to check their watches, and other things that start to fade below the level of Sam’s hearing as Dean gets in the car and the Impala rumbles to a start. 

Sam looks back at the cellar, feels a shiver make its way up his spine at the sight of the open door, leading downwards, like a dark pit to some kind of underworld, and then grabs his clothes and slides into the front passenger seat, next to Dean, where the sounds of Motorhead wrap around him and turn the ache in his head, in his chest, into a pounding rhythm.

\--

“So, what happened?” Sam asks, when they’re back at their motel, staring at their brands in the bathroom mirror. His eyes flick to Dean’s, who’s looking right back at him, and Sam widens his eyes, a silent plea for Dean to ‘ _just answer already_.’ 

“What do you remember?” Dean asks in reply, before poking his brand with his finger and grimacing, Sam assumes, at the sting. 

Sam frowns, pushes off from the counter and goes out into the room for his duffel and the first aid kit. “I’m not sure,” he says, trying to parse the few things he _can_ remember, most of it trapped behind a wall of endless light in his mind, a wall that wasn't there before he passed out. “The woman and that damned light. She came down the steps, said something,” and he stops, because the words, they’re swimming in his head, banging against that wall, but they don’t make any sense. 

“Two and two again, something like that,” and Sam shakes his head, pulls the antibiotic ointment out and goes back into the bathroom. “Something about fire as well,” he adds, and offers Dean the tube after squirting some out on his own fingers. 

He’s not looking at Dean when Dean asks, voice too quiet, too low, “What did she do to you? You were still breathing, but you didn’t say anything, not even when she touched us. And dude, Sam, that shit _hurt_.” 

Sam looks up, sees the clench of jaw that means Dean’s worried and pissed off on Sam’s behalf, and shrugs. “Couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t talk. Nothing except breathe.” 

“Any idea why?” Dean asks, too calmly for Sam’s comfort. 

Remembering the odd feeling in the pit of his stomach, the way he felt a connection to the woman, the look in her eyes as she knelt and kissed him, Sam shakes his head again. “No,” he says. “I don’t know,” he lies. 

\--

They head out to a diner for breakfast around eleven, gauze and ointment over the brands, Dean looking at everyone with suspicion in his easy smile. Sam’s caught in his thoughts, trying to figure out what the woman meant, who she is, what the symbol on their skin means, and he jumps when the waitress, Moira, slides a plate of food under his face. Sam gives her a distracted smile, starts eating, and when he looks at Dean, his brother’s watching him, almost too carefully. 

“I think I’ve seen the symbol before,” Sam eventually says, playing with his scrambled eggs, when Dean’s silent treatment gets to be too much. “I can’t think of where, though, and it’s driving me crazy.” 

“Talk it out, then,” Dean says after he swallows a mouthful of sausage and toast. “Maybe if you can figure out what it means, you’ll remember where you saw it before.”

One corner of Sam’s mouth quirks at the advice, something their father said over and over again, every time they hit a dead end at the research or got stuck with too many leads and no good idea which one to follow. Sam always used to take the advice at school, has wondered before if he did so well at Stanford because of the ways John taught them to think, and hearing the words come out of Dean’s mouth now, it’s surreal but not entirely unexpected. 

“It’s a circle, with a triangle going through it,” Sam says, ripping the crust off of his toast and making the design on his plate, staring at it. He adds eggs as he goes on, says, “A circle at the apex of the triangle, a flame in the middle of them both. I dunno, it’s like the triangle is some kind of trinity representation, centred around the fire, but it’s timeless, too, with the circle.”

Dean hums, tilts his head and looks at Sam’s plate, reaches over and snags a piece of toast lying to the side, chomping on it before he asks, “Not some kind of Coptic or Gnostic iconography, is it? Trinities and eternities, sounds Christian to me.” 

Sam spins his plate around, studying the symbol upside down before he turns the plate back, shaking his head. “I guess the flame could represent the Holy Spirit, tongues of fire and all that, but I don’t think it’s Christian. A lot of that early symbology was drawn from older religions; it could be anything. I’d guess European, but the fire, I can’t put my finger on it.” 

“What about that circle at the top?” Dean asks. 

Sam’s eyes flick up, to the apex of the triangle, and realises that the woman in the cellar, her necklace had the same triangle topped with the same circle on it, but the flames, they were bigger, and there wasn’t a circle around the triangle. 

“A crown,” he says, and Dean raises an eyebrow. “No, the triangle, if it’s a true trinity, there should be a circle on each point, right? But there’s not, so one of them’s more important? Or more recognised?”

Its close, on the tip of his tongue, and when their waitress comes back, refills their coffee, Sam glances at her nametag and it comes to him. 

Dean waits until she’s gone, then leans forward and asks, “What? You’ve come up with something, what is it?” 

“The fire threw me off,” Sam says, transfixed by the design, “but the triangle, the trinity, and the circle. It’s timelessness, but it’s also the cycle of life. The crown, it’s not importance, it’s _knowledge_. The Celtic emphasis, remember?”

He looks at Dean, who purses his lips, says, “Knowledge, right. But who does this symbol belong to, then?” 

“She came down the stairs with a spear,” Sam murmurs, though the words sound loud, echo in his ears. “Warrior, but this incarnation was focused on knowledge, on foresight and prophecy.” He doesn’t mention the curious sense of kinship he felt with her, the way her eyes, the knowledge in them, called to him, called to that part of him that the demon wants. A death goddess, and he has death visions, no wonder. 

“The Morrigan, as Macha, the prophetess.” 

Dean lets out a low whistle, then dismantles the design on Sam’s plate, steals the crusts and eats the rest of Sam’s eggs. 

\--

They go back to the motel, grab the laptop, then head an hour down the road to Duluth and the local University of Minnesota campus’ library. Sam puts Dean to work going through the entire section of Celtic mythology looking for mentions of the Morrigan, books and computer articles, especially as her Macha incarnation, and Sam tries to decipher what the hell Macha was talking about, those too-cryptic words she spoke. 

He knows there’s something else he’s missing too, can’t put his finger on it, but after three hours, Dean getting fidgety and their table covered in books, scrap paper, printed pages, notebooks with bindings falling out, Sam gives up. He leans back in his chair, throws down the pen he’s been chewing on, and rubs his temples. 

“Headache?” 

Sam looks at Dean, at the too-careful question, and says, “Yeah. Too many hours staring at books.” He watches as Dean studies him a moment longer and then sees Dean relax, wonders how to remind Dean that he hasn’t a vision in weeks, much less one of the migraines that precede and follow them. 

“Oh, come on,” Dean says, tilting his chair back on two legs, twirling a pen. “College boy, and it only takes you three hours to get a headache? Dude, how did you _not_ flunk out of Stanford?” 

It’s another too-careful question buried under the teasing; it’s been years since Sam dropped out of school but Dean always tiptoes around talking about the time Sam was away, meanders around the edge of bringing Stanford up, of bringing Jess up, until Sam does it for him, frustrated by that point. This, though, straight-forward and joking, it makes Sam grin and throw a rolled-up piece of paper at his brother. 

Dean bats it away, says, “No, seriously, come on,” like he can’t believe Sam hasn’t shut down and started brooding already, like he knows he’s pushing his luck but can’t help it, needs to know. 

“Methods of deciphering a goddess’ ravings weren’t exactly on any class syllabus,” Sam says with a shrug, looking down at the table, tracing letters carved on the surface. “History’s a lot easier, and the reading, if it got to be too much, it’s not like lives depended on it. I mean,” he says, then stops, shrugs again. “I didn’t mind it. And when I did get headaches, after Jess and I got together, she’d make me stop, help me work out the tension.” 

“Oh, I bet,” Dean mutters, wiggling his eyebrows, and he looks so ridiculous that Sam can’t help but laugh. Hearing that, Dean lightens up a little bit more and the edges of his smile look more real, more relaxed. 

Sam grins, tears his eyes away from the shine in Dean’s, shakes his head. “Dude, stop perving on my girlfriend, okay? It’s a little weird.” 

Dean snorts, says, “Your girlfriend was _hot_ , Sam,” and freezes at the past tense. 

Sam doesn’t, though, just replies, “Fuck yeah, she was. Way out of my league.” He watches as Dean tips the chair back a little further, then lets it fall forward, thumping on to all four legs. 

Dean gathers up his stuff, pens and notebooks, pushes the laptop to Sam, and when he’s standing, Sam following his lead, mutters, “No such thing, Sammy,” and brushes away, heading right for the bored co-ed sitting behind the circulation desk. 

With raised eyebrow, half-wondering if he imagined those last few words, Sam grabs the laptop and follows, because someone needs to remind Dean they’re on a job. 

\--

They get back to Calumet just before six, three hours of sunlight left and the remnants of a fast-food drive-through meal in the back seat. The weather’s warm enough that they’ve driven from Duluth with the windows down, not warm enough to dissipate a sense in the air that this is a land of winter, ice and snow and creatures with cold hearts and sharp teeth. They won’t need the air conditioner on tonight; they’ll crack the windows instead, let the sound of the forest lull them to sleep. 

Sam doesn’t mind, almost prefers it that way, likes to know that the world still exists around him, hasn’t blown up or gone to hell while he’s had his eyes closed. He’s never slept well with it perfectly quiet, like that semester John had them living in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, has to have noise and only got more used to that living on campus, then in one of the cheaper, student districts of Palo Alto, then in motel after motel, close to highways, in the middle of cities, or with loud people in the rooms around them. 

Still, there’s hours to go before sleep, and no doubt Dean’ll want to go to one of the local bars before they start the night’s recon, so when they pull into the motel parking lot and go into the room, Sam doesn’t do more than give his bed a longing, mournful look. 

\--

The bar keeps them busy for a few hours while they wait for it to get dark. Dean hustles a few games of pool, nothing too obvious or serious, and Sam sits in a corner with a book on Celtic myth that he lifted from UMD’s library, one eye on Dean, the other on the pages. 

As the day’s gone on and his headache’s come and gone a few times over, Sam’s written down the words Macha said, as well as he can remember them, on a piece of paper, the one currently holding his page. What she said doesn’t make sense, if he was even right and that _was_ Macha. Two and two and two again, but two what and why are they coming in pairs? And that crack about the fire, it could have something to do with the demon or it could be completely unrelated. Sam doesn’t know, doesn’t even know where to start looking for the answers, and it’s driving him crazy. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” 

Sam looks up, caught off-guard, and smiles at the girl standing next to him, one hand with red-lacquered nails resting on the table, tapping out an echo of the rhythm coming from the jukebox. 

“Sorry, I’m being forward,” she goes on. “But you look too deep in thought for a bar. Mind if I sit?” 

“No, help yourself,” Sam says, closing the book, sliding it down the table, eyes flicking over and catching Dean raising an eyebrow at him. “I’m Sam, by the way, and that’s my brother over there. I’m just here to make sure he doesn’t get in trouble.” 

She turns around, brown curls catching on big hoop earrings with the movement, and Sam sees Dean grin, use the pool cue to send them a salute. She turns back to Sam, giggles a little, and Sam hides a wince, though he’s surprised when she glances at the book and says, “Celtic myth, huh? Deep subject for a bar. You sure you wouldn’t rather be reading Tom Clancy or Stephen King?” 

“Research for a paper,” Sam says. “It’s pretty boring stuff, really, but I’m running out of time.” 

She tilts her head, starts twirling one strand of hair around her finger, and leans closer, says, “Sometimes fire isn’t the only thing that burns,” and while Sam’s blinking, because he’s met her eyes and they’re deep, endless, she winks and disappears. 

Sam’s left staring blankly at the space where a twenty-something co-ed was _just_ talking to him. By the time he shakes off the confusion, Dean’s pulling him up and pushing him towards the exit. 

Once they’re outside, Dean punches the side of the building, says, “What the _fuck_ was that?”

Sam decides that Dean’s addressing the greater universe-at-large and stays silent while Dean glares out into the dark forest around them. 

\--

They go back to the cellar but there’s nothing there, and without any new leads, there’s not much they can do. 

Dean doesn’t like it, especially because they’ve both been branded and can’t get kill the goddess who branded them, but the ache settles into Sam, deeper, like something warm, and he doesn’t mind. Having Macha’s touch on him, remembering the look in her eyes, the way she kissed him, slow and sad, it’s almost comforting. 

That should really scare him more than it does. 

 

_20 September / 21 September_

“Are you _sure_ it’s the Morrigan?” 

Sam’s not surprised to hear the question; the only reason he’s surprised is because he thought Dean would’ve asked before this. Thinking that, though, it’s almost like he expected the question now, like something inside of him is drawn back to memories of that cellar and that bar tonight more than any other night since. Maybe it’s the brand, because it feels as if it’s throbbing, searching out its boundaries, pushing against walls of burnt-in and damaged skin. 

“No,” Sam says, and Dean nearly runs the Impala off the road. Once the car’s back under control, Dean looks over, gives Sam a wordless demand for more, and Sam sighs, says, “Look, Dean, that’s just what I came up with, and it’s what the research bore out, but only because we were looking for it to support us, not because we were going into it cold. If we went back, found a good library, somebody who knows symbols,” he trails off, then shakes his head, finishes, “there could be a million different explanations.” 

Dean huffs, looks out of his window, head turned, and Sam stares at Dean’s neck, shivers and looks away, something else that’s been happening more, but more today than any other day since Macha touched them. It’s as if his eyes won’t stay away from Dean, like Dean’s magnetic and Sam’s pulled towards him, and it’s weird and strangely right, all at the same time. It makes no sense at all, but nothing about this does, so he’s stopped worrying about it. 

For now, anyway. 

“A goddess, though,” Dean says, shifting in his seat, slowing down and hanging a left at a blinking yellow light in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana. “I didn’t know those things were even real, Sam.” 

Sam shrugs, asks, “Don’t you remember that thing, back in the eighties, with the cat-goddess? Egyptian, I think. Dad talked about it for months.”

“Wait. What?”

Sam would laugh at the look on Dean’s face, if he didn’t sound serious. “Dean. You don’t remember? Come on, every time we saw a cat, for _months_ , Dad snickered. One of the hunters down south, Florida, I think, or Georgia, they thought it was, like, Sekhmat or one of them, and it turned out it was just a witch who’d done some kind of transmogrification spell and gotten it wrong, but ended up with the nine lives, came over here in the sixties because she’d heard rumours about another one like her? You seriously don’t remember? Dad talked about it, Pastor Jim talked about it, Bobby talked about it, Caleb talked about it, Joshua talked.” 

“I get it,” Dean says, cutting Sam off. “I don’t remember. But this cat-goddess, she was really a chick all the time? So the Morrigan, she could just be some kind of witch. Or a necromancer, since she’s a death goddess?” 

“It’s possible,” Sam says, “but the legends are pretty serious. I mean, shapeshifting, prophecy, dissension, all the references to trinitarian stuff, and there’s the fertility aspect and the politicking as well.” He pauses, shakes his head. “Demons, all right, and we’ll leave angels alone for now, but there’s never been a hunter who found an honest, true god or goddess. If they’re real, they just don’t get involved.” 

Dean snorts, and when Sam looks over at him, says, “There was that hell goddess. What was her, oh, Glory.” 

Sam rolls his eyes. “I meant in real life, Dean, not on _Buffy_.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Dean sighs, as if to say that Sam’s being a spoil-sport and should just chill out and join the human race already. 

Actually, Sam’s heard that sigh before, and gotten that exact explanation after hearing it, so he knows what Dean’s thinking, trying to say without speaking, and it makes his head hurt and his brand ache to be so sure of Dean. 

“So we’re going on the assumption that she was the Morrigan, but that the Morrigan’s human? How do we kill her?” 

It takes a minute for the question to register, mostly because Sam’s trying to look out of the front window and not at Dean, but then it clicks and he can’t help himself, has to turn and gape in Dean’s general direction. “You want to kill a goddess,” he says, flat and disbelieving, both at the same time. 

Dean shrugs, says, “Why not?” 

“Kill. As in, we’re going to salt-and-burn. As in, we’re going to cut her head off and stuff it with silver. As in, we’re going to shoot her full of rock salt and iron rounds. As in, we’re.” 

“Dude, Sam, chill out,” Dean says, interrupting Sam. “You said it yourself: if she’s a real goddess, she would've kept her ass out of our lives.” 

Sam’s about ready to remind Dean that mystical and divine beings have a ridiculous sense of humour, that maybe she’s getting involved for a reason, but then Dean’s slamming on the brakes and Sam has to reach out, slam one hand against the dash to stop himself from moving any farther forward. 

The Impala stops and Sam’s looking over at Dean, waiting for an explanation, but Dean’s getting out of the car and grabbing the gun out of the back of his jeans, heading for something in front of them with enough concentration to turn Sam’s mind away from the sudden halt to the thought that maybe Dean saw something on this deserted stretch of road. 

He gets out as well, grabs his knife and stalks to where Dean is, flanking his brother like he’s done a million times before, but this time, for some reason, his brand is throbbing and he'd swear he can feel the heat pouring off of Dean’s body and curling up against his own skin, every little flicker reminding him of fire, of flames. 

Sam swallows, looks around, then up at the sky. Clouds over the moon, but he knows it’s in its first quarter, growing steadily, and its still giving off enough light that, between the moon and the headlights, he can see a mile down the road. What he can’t see is whatever spooked his brother. 

“Dean?” he asks, whispering, just in case.

Dean shakes his head, stands up, gives the fields around them a disgusted look. “Thought I saw something. Woman in white, maybe. Ghost, something like that.” 

Sam breathes, tries to bring his body back under control, all that adrenaline racing with nothing to take it out on, but he eventually just jogs in place for a minute, huffs. 

“Hate Indiana,” Dean mutters, as he turns back to the Impala, putting the gun back in his jeans. “Always creepy shit going down, too many corn fields drive a person crazy, then they die and come back with scythes or possess tractors. S’not right, I’m telling you. We should just salt the whole fucking state.” 

It’s a familiar story, one Sam’s heard more than once before, so he doesn’t pay it or Dean’s tone any attention, instead trying to calm his heart down, which feels like its racing. His palms are sweaty, every nerve on fire, and a moment later, he says, “Dean? I don’t. I don’t feel so good.” 

Dean’s right there, taking the knife out of Sam’s hands, stroking one hand down Sam’s face, which makes Sam groan in something approaching pain. “Sam? Talk to me here, come on. Tell me what’s going on.” 

Those are the same words Dean said in the cellar, or close to them; Sam’s mind has to be playing tricks on him, because there’s a woman behind Dean now, with long black hair, holding a spear and pointing it right at them. 

“Dean,” Sam whispers, eyes wide, but when Dean turns to look, nothing’s there. A moment later, a flock of crows, a _murder_ of crows, comes gliding out of the field, silent wings and closed beaks. Sam’s about ready to remind Dean of the Morrigan, her shifter form, but then his brand starts piercing and all he can see is darkness. 

\--

“This is getting to be too normal,” Sam grumbles, as Dean helps him stand up. He rubs dust out of his eyes, curses the Morrigan or his gift or whatever has him passing out at every given opportunity, and then realises that Dean’s staring right at him, expectant look on his face. “What?” 

Dean laughs, a quick, sharp sound, and pushes Sam towards the Impala. “Dude. You were staring over my shoulder, like you saw something. Did you? Because I didn’t see a thing.”

Sam stumbles, hearing that, and he whips his head around, looks at Dean. “Not a thing?”

“No,” Dean says, frowning now. “Why? What did _you_ see?” 

“Crows. A whole murder of them,” Sam says, and he can’t help a silly little grin, because how often do they have the chance to talk about a murder and there not be bodies or something needing to be hunted? “Anyway,” he goes on, shaking his head and shaking the smile away, “Macha was back, standing right behind you, and then she disappeared, turned into a bunch of crows, like she shifted, and then the brand started hurting.” 

Dean nods, gets in the driver’s side of the Impala as Sam’s sliding into the passenger seat and relaxing once he feels leather underneath him, not having to worry about whether or not his knees will give out. 

“Mine did as well,” Dean says, sitting in his seat, hands on his lap, staring out of the front window. “Felt like someone was hammering nails into me. And you were just unconscious.”

Sam’s brow furrows, hearing the tone of voice Dean’s using, and all he can think to say is, “It feels better now.” 

\--

They drive a hundred miles in the direction of Michigan, end up getting a motel an hour north of Indianapolis. Sam’s unpacking clean clothes as Dean’s in the bathroom, getting ready to take a shower, and he jumps when he hears Dean start yelling. 

The bathroom door flies open, and Dean’s standing there just in his boxers, which has Sam’s mouth going dry, though he doesn’t exactly know what’s going on, why that might be happening. 

“Sammy, take off your pants,” Dean orders, and Sam balks, takes one step backwards. “No, come on, do it,” Dean says, and he turns just enough so that Sam can see a mark on Dean’s side, hip-level, almost the same pattern as the brand but not inflamed, not like the original was that first night. 

Sam shucks off his clothes, until he’s in just his boxers and socks, and twists, turns, until his eyes settle on his mark, identical to Dean’s, to the one over both of their hearts save for a line going down the middle of the new ones, bisecting the brand. 

“Well, shit,” Sam says, and pokes at the mark. It feels like a tattoo, one that’s been given time to heal, that’s settled into skin, but he knows it wasn’t there this morning and this, it’s too weird, too surreal. 

He looks up at Dean, shrugs, and Dean stands there, staring at him, until Dean finally huffs and goes back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. The shower goes on a moment later, and while Dean’s inside, probably using up all of the hot water, Sam opens the laptop and emails a contact.

\--

They sleep for a few hours, and when they’re both moderately awake and dressed, Sam checks his email, reads the reply from his contact, and tells Dean they’re expected in South Bend for lunch. 

“What’s in South Bend?” Dean asks, giving the motel coffee-pot a suspicious look. 

“A contact,” Sam replies, tying his shoelaces. “One of the professors at Notre Dame is.” 

Dean cuts him off, says, “Notre Dame? The university? Sam, have you forgotten we’re fugitives? It’s not like waltzing into UMD. There are actually real _people_ , and South Bend’s not small. It’s too close to Chicago.” 

“You wanna find out what these marks are all about?” Sam asks. “Because the person I know there can help us. Trust me, I promise we’ll be all right.” 

Dean doesn’t seem convinced, but they’re heading north an hour and a greasy breakfast later, on their way to South Bend. 

\--

Sam knocks on a door in the English department, and when someone calls out, he turns to Dean and lets loose with a grin before pushing the door open and sticking his head around the corner. 

The office is pretty much as Sam had expected, books and papers piled everywhere, no system to the madness, at least, not a visible one. There’s a head sporting messy blonde hair just barely visible around a large stack of clipped together papers, student essays, Sam thinks. 

The person doesn’t look up at them, just says, “Can I help you with something?” and sounds distracted, caught up in whatever she’s scribbling—because it’s a woman. 

Dean elbows Sam, gives him the ‘ _explain now, please_ ,’ look, and Sam clears his throat, says, “Well, _here_ is a place of disaffection.” 

Dean gives him a funny look, but the woman huffs, says, “Time before and time after,” stops there, like she’s just realised what she’s saying, and looks up, over the stack of papers in front of her. Her eyes widen when she sees Sam, and she jumps up, bangs one knee on the desk, and comes careening around the side, practically falling into Sam’s arms. “Jesus _fuck_ ,” she says, wrapping her arms around Sam, squeezing him tight. “I didn’t think you were serious.” 

Sam laughs, and Dean raises an eyebrow, so Sam extricates himself gently from her arms and says, “This is Dean, Eliot. My brother. Remember him?” before he turns to Dean and says, “Grace. We all called her Eliot—she was one of our TAs at Stanford. She was at Jess’ funeral, but her hair was longer. And brown.” 

Dean gives him a curious look, probably the mention of Jess, Sam’s not sure, but then Dean’s holding out one hand, shaking hers. “Pleasure’s all mine,” he says, flashing her a grin, and Sam rolls his eyes. 

Grace takes it with a smile, then bends down and kisses the back of Dean’s hand. Dean’s grin grows deeper, wider, and Grace stands up, lets go of Dean’s hand, stretches, and pops her back. 

“Why Eliot?” Dean asks, giving her a very thorough once-over. “And what’s with the secret code?”

Sam smiles, ducks his head, and Grace says, “I’m an English prof, Dean. We don’t need reasons for anything; we’re all crazy.”

“It’s from an Eliot poem,” Sam says, because Dean’s smiling, but the kind of smile that means he doesn’t get whatever’s going on around him, the kind that says someone better explain fast or he’ll give up and find a bar, a game of pool or darts to hustle. “I had to write an essay for one of my classes and I picked Eliot, which is Grace’s weak spot. When I had questions, I went to her, and she helped me out. Saved my ass, really, and she never let me forget it.” 

Dean’s smile turns warmer and he gives Grace another look, one she returns. Sam shakes his head, smiling, because it’s the type of look older siblings give one another in the presence of their younger brothers or sisters, like they can’t believe they’ve been stuck with the kids but oh, well, they’re doing the best they can. 

“So,” Grace says, rubbing her hands together and turning to Sam. “What’ve you got for me? You said something about some kind of symbol you thought was Celtic?”

\--

Grace sits down, moves some paperwork from her desk to the floor, and Sam and Dean clear off the other two chairs before sitting down. Sam takes a piece of scrap paper from the desk and sketches out the symbol he’d seen on Macha’s necklace, as well as the designs of the brands on his skin, and tells her about the calendar pattern, the one Ash put together and the one that’s followed him and Dean. When she asks where he found these, Sam says something about his dad’s journal, notes he had for a book he was writing, one that Sam and Dean are trying to finish up. He hates to lie to a friend but Sam knows he can’t tell her the truth, not when he hardly believes it. 

She studies the symbol from Macha’s necklace, then gets up, walks back and forth in front of her bookshelves, crammed and overflowing, a few times, muttering under her breath. 

Dean leans over to Sam and whispers, “Dude. How’s she supposed to help us?” 

Apparently Grace hears, because she doesn’t even look at Dean as she says, “Eliot might be my specialty, but I’m a mythic Modernist at heart, and every good mythic Modernist knows everything they can about the Celtic legends, what with Yeats and Frazer and Waite and the Golden Dawn, not to mention Crowley and Lady Gregory and the Fox sisters.”

Grace keeps going, talking under her breath, and when Dean turns to look at Sam, Sam merely shrugs. “I was a history major,” he says. “She might as well be speaking Mandarin to me.” 

She’s still muttering, but just when Dean’s about to open his mouth, she bends down and pulls out three books from the bottom shelf with an, “A-ha! Knew I had them somewhere.” The books get thrown on the desk, and Grace thumps into her chair, pushes some wayward hair away from her eyes, and then opens the first one, paging through it. 

“From the sketches, it looks like you were right to assume the Morrigan,” she’s saying, not looking at either of the Winchesters. “Each of the sides of the triangle represents one of her aspects, with the flame in the middle signifying Macha. The Badb would’ve had a crow feather, that or a wolf’s fang, and any of the others, Nemain, Anaan, Fea, would’ve had something to do with the land, either a hill or a river, something like that. No, fire means Macha. The circle at the top,” and here she pauses, looks over the top of the book to Sam’s sketch. 

“What?” Dean asks, leaning forward. 

Grace hums under her breath, flips another few pages in the book currently open, then opens one of the others, starts ruffling through that one, ignoring the brothers. 

Dean and Sam exchange looks, and Dean mutters under his breath, “I can see why the two of you get along so well.” 

Sam snorts at the same time Grace does, and settles back into his chair for a snooze as Grace sinks into research.

\--

“So Sam was right,” Dean says, once Grace has spent half an hour lecturing them on old Irish myths and the history of the Tuatha Dé Danaan. “And the other symbols, they’re hers as well, but related to the pattern we were talking about.”

Grace nods, leans back in her chair and stares at the ceiling. “The pattern related to the old fire festivals. Well, the scholars dispute just how old all of the festivals are, but they’re all a bunch of joyless men with sticks up their asses, so who cares about them, huh? Anyway, if your dad’s keeping track of them in his journal, the next one should be around Hallowe’en and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something relating to war or the dead. Probably the dead. Maybe war dead. Hm.” 

Sam bites his lower lip, looks over at Dean, who doesn’t look pleased in the least, not that Sam can blame him. From what Grace has said, they’ll be getting new brands every time a festival rolls around, until Macha decides they’ve had enough. 

 

_31 October / 1 November_

It stings. 

They’d taken Hallowe’en off, just like family tradition and every other year; enough people are out tonight, believing in things, that it’s safer for everyone if the Winchesters aren’t outside hunting with guns or crossbows. Still, they’d been off-balance all day, knowing the probable danger like only hunters can know, knowing and trying to ignore it. Dean had gone out earlier in the day and picked up beer, liquor, Chinese, and a couple movies, and they both fell asleep before midnight, passed out thanks to Jack and some unpronounceable beef-vegetable mix. 

Sam wakes up with a gasp, and the first thing he can think of, the first thing he says, is, “It stings.” He blinks, shakes his head, shakes off the nightmare he can’t remember the details of now, and looks over, sees Dean still asleep on the other bed. His eyes linger, caught on Dean’s arms, the sinews and muscles, the lines of bones and sweep of skin, and he swallows, mouth dry, before he says, “Dean, wake up.” 

Dean jumps, one hand reaching under the pillow for his knife, but Sam gets up, goes to the bathroom before Dean’s even opened his eyes. He’s moving, though; Sam can hear his brother untangling his legs from the sheets and making his way to the bathroom. 

Sam takes off his shirt, turns and looks over his shoulder, sees the brand sitting in the small of his back, peeking out from under the waistband of his pajama pants. He pulls the elastic away from his skin, rolls it down like Jess always used to with her shorts, until it’s resting on the curve of his ass. 

The brand’s sunken in, but it looks red this time, as if someone put the brand on and then traced over it with red ink, deep and dark, like blood. Over the simple triangle, there’s the vague outline of what looks like a skull. 

“Huh,” Dean says, and when Sam looks, Dean’s staring at the reflection in the mirror. The look in Dean’s eyes, hot and assessing, makes Sam’s heart skip a beat, and he swallows, lets his pants snap back up, the way they’re meant to be. 

 

_25 December / 26 December_

He thinks he figured it out on Hallowe’en but he’s not sure until Christmas rolls around, the wall of light in his mind growing and spreading itself too thin to hide everything. They’re in Utah, going after a pack of splintercats, and when the sun goes down, Sam feels every inch of his skin break out into goosebumps. Dean, next to him, shivers, and then mutters something about desert nights, how he should’ve worn his other coat. 

Sam thinks about saying something, thinks about telling Dean what he’s guessed is going on, but then the pack starts to howl and Dean’s moving, nothing for Sam to do but follow. 

\--

The cats are tough to take out—half of them climb rocks and cacti and attack them from above while the other half form a loose circle and keep Sam and Dean back to back. It’s not a hard way to fight, not for them, trained to it and instinctively used to watching out for each other, but something about it is different tonight. 

Sam can feel Dean standing behind him, can feel every move his brother makes, almost exactly at the same time Dean makes it. He can predict what Dean will do better than he ever has before, and though it takes them almost an hour to kill and burn all of the cats, he thinks maybe it would’ve been longer before all of this started. 

Dean’s standing near the fire, shadows flickering over his face, and Sam opens his mouth to say something, to tell Dean that the wall of light holding back all he learnt from the Morrigan’s touch is breaking apart, slowly breaking down. He can’t, though; he hasn’t said anything to Dean about the wall in his mind yet and now that he wants to, the words won’t come out. Instead, he just stands behind his brother, watches the movement of Dean’s muscles as he breathes, and tries to ignore the heat pulsing from every brand, including the new one that just came out tonight, the one he can feel on his left ankle.


	2. Chapter 2

_21 March / 22 March_

They’re both ready and waiting this time, and they aren’t disappointed. They’ve got five brands scattered over each of their bodies, above the heart, on hips and backs and ankles and arms, because the last one that came, at the beginning of February, on Imbolc, is resting on the flesh of their arms, underneath, above the vein in the wrist. 

All five of Sam’s are throbbing, have been all day, just like the wall in his mind, and it’s been getting steadily worse. He feels like his entire body is burning, as if he has a fever, and he’s been seeing things as well, vague flashes and phantom impressions of something else being around them. They aren’t visions, though his head is pounding, more like he can almost see past this world to something else, maybe the world that restless spirits inhabit, imaginary things overlaid on top of real things. 

Dean’s kept Sam inside all day, not when they don’t know if Sam’s more of a magnet for the supernatural now or what seeing an honest-to-fuck ghost might do to him, but Sam’s ready for the day to be over with, for the next brand to come in hopes that the rest of him will stop aching and he’ll be able to sleep, to stop grinding his teeth in frustration and pain. 

Just after midnight, Sam goes in to the bathroom to wash his face, and he yells, “Dean! Come here!” when he turns the faucet on. Dean’s there a moment later, asking him what’s wrong, what’s going on, if he’s all right, and Sam doesn’t take his eyes off of the sink as he asks, “Is there anything wrong with the water coming out of the tap?”

Dean looks down, frowns, then looks back up, says, “No. It’s just water. Why?” 

Sam can’t help a near-hysterical laugh as he replies, “Because it looks like blood to me. I don’t, it’s not water. It’s blood.” 

Dean turns pale, turns the water off with a quick snap, and ushers Sam back out into the room, sets Sam on the bed and goes for a bottle of water. Sam’s staring into space, because he can _see_ things in the air now, things watching them, like patterns of lacy mist in the air, circling around and between him and Dean, as if they’re caught in the spaces between him and his brother. 

“Dean,” Sam whispers, terrified now, because those things are coalescing, turning into owls and crows and wolves, animals and birds with endlessly deep eyes, all of them giving off an air of expectant knowledge, waiting and watching. 

A water bottle gets pushed into Sam’s hands, and when he looks down, he flinches, tosses it away, because the bottle’s filled with blood, not water. The smell of soap floods through his nose; Sam looks around, eyes wide with fear but jaw clenched, trying to figure out what’s going on, but then his gaze stops on the television. It’s turned off, but there’s a figure reflected back, a woman, standing in a river and washing clothes, washing _his_ clothes, his and Dean’s. 

“Sam?” Dean says, impossibly close, and Sam jumps but he can’t move his eyes away from the woman, who’s paused, looking back at him, tears of blood running down her cheeks. “Sammy, come on, snap out of it, please.” 

Sam can’t breathe, can’t move, and then the pain in the brands spirals to a crescendo, and it’s almost a relief when his vision turns black. 

\--

He wakes up with a groan, turns to one side and vomits into the bucket Dean has waiting for him. Not much comes out, but it makes him feel a little better, takes the ache in his head down from roaring to a dull throb. 

“Where is it?” he asks, eyes still closed, curled up into as close to a foetal position as he can get his body, hands pressed on his stomach. Dean doesn’t say anything, so Sam swallows and asks again, “Where?” 

“Open your eyes,” Dean says, too quietly for Sam’s taste. 

He does, opens them and lifts his hands, rubs the swirling dizziness out of his eyes, and tries to focus on his brother. When his vision clears and settles, he swallows again, and says, “How are we supposed to hide them?” because Dean’s brand is right in the middle of his forehead, which means that Sam’s is as well. 

“Your hair’s long enough,” Dean says, still quiet. “I figure you can go into a drugstore, buy some make-up to cover them. How are you feeling?” 

One of Dean’s hands covers Sam’s, and the feverish feeling in Sam’s fingers and toes dies down with the touch. He can’t explain it, or, rather, hopes that the inklings he’s beginning to get are wrong. Sam doesn’t think they are, not with the surreptitious research he’s done, not with Macha’s words bouncing off that wall in his mind, the one that keeps getting brighter and thinner every time he tries to think beyond it, but he can hope. He’s a Winchester, he’s good at denial. 

“I’ve been better,” Sam says with a weak laugh. “But I’ve been worse, too. It could be worse.”

He tells himself that he imagines the squeeze Dean gives him before his brother moves away, goes back to his own bed.

\--

Sam lies there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, unable to get to sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, he thinks he can almost see those phantasmal creatures hovering around his bed, so he keeps his eyes open, and no matter how dry they get, he won’t get up, won’t get out of bed, won’t go into the bathroom and turn on the faucet again to soak them. 

He wonders if seeing through this world is a side-effect of Macha’s touch, her brands all over him, or if it’s part of his own gift, the death visions, that’s been unlocked. It makes him shiver, though, those little sneak-traces of ghostly lace in the corners of his eyes, and it almost hurts to breathe. His head’s pounding and he feels like he might burn to death if this fever-like feeling doesn’t break soon.

It takes an hour of motionless staring before the panic comes back. Sam can’t breathe, it hurts too much, and he sits up suddenly, fast enough and loud enough, out of nowhere, to wake Dean up, who’s out of his bed and perched on the edge of Sam’s in seconds, hands roaming over Sam’s face. 

“What is it? Sam, come on, not again, please,” Dean’s saying, but Sam can’t answer. Dean’s fingers, they’re warm, hot like Sam’s, but where they’re touching him, it feels better, cooler, like this fire inside of him is eased off simply by Dean being right there. 

“I can still see them,” Sam whispers, staring at Dean and ignoring what he can see around Dean’s head, the crows that seem to be flying around the room, the wolves that are prowling around the bed. One gets close enough to brush against Dean’s foot, the one still on the floor, and Sam grabs at Dean, pulls his brother’s body entirely onto the bed. 

The wolf smiles, if such a thing is even possible, like that’s what it was trying to get accomplished, and Sam shudders. 

“Sam, what the fuck’s going on with you?” Dean asks, looking around the room. “Because, man, you’re freaking me out. That brand mess with your head more than it could handle?” 

Sam ducks his head, says, quiet, almost like he’s ashamed, “The things I could almost see before? Whatever she did, before the brands appeared, I could see them, and I thought it’d go away once I woke up again, but they’re still solid, and I can _see_ them, Dean, and they’re crows and wolves, and it was _touching_ you and I’m so hot, they’re _everywhere_ , just watching us.” 

He’s almost hyperventilating, knows he sounds like he’s going insane, but he can’t help it. Dean doesn’t seem to care, though, because he pushes Sam over and stretches out on Sam’s bed, head on the pillow, knees tucked enough so that his feet aren’t falling off of the bed. 

“Lay down,” Dean says, orders, and when Sam just sits there and stares, Dean huffs and, voice far too careful, says, “Look, dude, don’t make a big deal out of it, okay? Just lay down.” 

Sam does, can’t stop from pressing his forehead against Dean’s shoulder, and the touch, skin on skin, seems to help his fever. He sighs, burrows in deeper, until his eyes are closed, eyelashes brushing against Dean’s skin, and falls asleep to the rhythm of Dean breathing. 

\--

Sam wakes up with a jerk and sits up, almost falling off of the bed. He looks around, doesn’t see anything that isn’t firmly planted in reality, so he leans down and rummages around in the nearest bag for a bottle of water and breathes a sigh of relief when it’s only water, nothing else, nothing it shouldn’t be. 

He gets up, goes into the bathroom and takes a cold shower, and when he comes out, towel around his waist, his eyes fall on Dean, still lying in Sam’s bed, still asleep, with his face pressed into Sam’s pillow. 

Sam’s brands pulse. 

He tears his eyes away, clears his throat, and thumps the air conditioner a couple times before reaching down and grabbing some clothes out of his duffel. Another cough, and when Dean doesn’t move, Sam sighs, kicks the bed, studiously does _not_ let his eyes caress the curve of Dean’s spine, and says, “Hey. Shower’s yours. We should get moving.” 

Dean mutters something, turning and burying his face in Sam’s pillow, covering his head with his own. Sam snorts, shrugs, and says, “I’ll go and get coffee. You better be moving when I’m back, or I swear I’ll pour yours down the sink and make you drink motel coffee for the rest of our lives.”

Sam watches as Dean tosses his pillow on the floor and looks up at him, hair rumpled and mirror images of the creases from the pillowcase down one cheek. “You do, and I swear to God I’ll never let you pick the music ever again,” Dean growls, voice sleep-rough and grumpy. “I’ll play cassettes you hate for the rest of your life and don’t think I won’t delete all of your crappy emo music off of the laptop.”

Sam shivers but ignores it, turns away and gestures in the direction of the bathroom. “Go. You reek. I’ll be back with coffee,” and doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, until Dean’s behind the closed bathroom door. He sinks onto the edge of Dean’s bed, the one Dean hasn’t been in for hours, the one that’s cold and looks untouched, and rubs his face, takes a minute to corral his thoughts, before getting dressed and leaving. 

 

_16 April_

Sam’s starting to get jittery and he can tell just by looking at Dean, by the types of cassettes Dean’s pushing into the player at all hours of the day and night, by the way Dean’s drinking coffee after coffee and pouring M&M’s down his throat like water, that Dean is as well. There’s no good reason apart from Sam’s birthday, two weeks away. 

And maybe that’s a good reason. Sam hasn’t had a vision in months now, literally, and the demon’s gone to ground; they haven’t heard a thing about him. Ash has kept checking, pulls a new psychic out of the ground every so often, but there haven’t been any new ones for a while, since a couple months before that thing in Calumet. 

Neither of them like that, would almost prefer to hear something, because a demon being quiet for this long can’t be good. It has to be up to something, has to be plotting or planning or doing things behind smokescreens they can’t see through, and Sam’s birthday, that would be a good time to spring up a whole new attack. 

They’re ready for it, though, ready and waiting and anxious for it to just get here. 

 

_28 April / 29 April_

The moon above them is sickle-shaped and glowing a sickly silver colour, turning everything white and ghost-like. Sam has a headache, but it’s not the one he’s coming to associate with the brands, with whatever game Macha’s playing with them. Instead, and far less exciting, it’s the one that means a vision is on the way, and Sam would much rather be getting another mark than a vision of someone dying. 

Dean can tell and Sam doesn’t want to think about why or how; his older brother had come to pick him up at the library, taken one look at him, and said, with more than a touch of exasperation in his voice, “Dude. Shouldn’t you be back waiting for this one at the motel? Don’t think the good people of Podunk, Tennessee, would appreciate you having a vision in their library.” 

Sam couldn’t argue with that, not much, but he’d made the token protests, reminding Dean about the hunt they’re on, trying to track down some crazy cultists who might be making blood sacrifices, telling Dean that Sam’s perfectly capable of dealing with the death visions by himself, whining that it isn’t fair that he has to be locked up for something he has no control over, but Dean had ignored them all, knew, somehow, that Sam wasn’t being serious, didn’t mind getting shuffled back to the motel like someone with something shameful to hide. 

His head aches more than usual; part of that could be the brand, like Dean thinks, but Sam’s convinced it’s because he hasn’t a vision in months, almost a year, and getting one now, it’s as if it has to unblock something so it’s pushing through with more pressure, with a vengeance.

They’re sitting outside on the Impala and looking up at the moon, the few stars they can see through the clouds, in the motel parking lot. Sam had been in the room for five hours with no company but Dean, and while he doesn’t mind being in closed quarters with his brother, that’s the problem. Being around Dean is starting to make him itchy, starting to make the brands on his skin throb and ache, even when he’s surfing the internet and Dean’s watching the Cartoon Network with his back to Sam, focused on something else. 

This, he knows, is thanks to the brands; he’s not sure why, not yet, with that shining wall in his mind, one that looks closer to breaking apart every day, but he’s certain. Dean hasn’t said if his brands are acting the same, if they bother him the way Sam’s are bothering Sam, but, then again, Sam knows Dean would never admit to something like that. 

After a few hours of the effort it took to appear at least partially interested in what he was reading, he’d stalked outside, climbed onto the trunk of the Impala and leaned back, staring up at the sky. Dean had followed not too long after, and as much as Sam had wanted to tell his brother to go back in the room, to leave him alone and give him space, when Dean had climbed up next to him, bumping elbows and kicking Sam in the shin, Sam couldn’t form the words to ask his brother to go. 

“On a scale of one to ten,” Dean says, and Sam groans, because Dean keeps asking him if the level of pain he’s in from the impending vision has changed. “No, come on, gimme a chance.” 

“It’s still a seven, Dean. Nothing’s changed, except that cloud looks more like a chicken now, less like a whale.” 

Dean snorts, and Sam relaxes a little, because he knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that although Dean’s worried, he’s still in a good mood. And then Sam tenses, because he shouldn’t know that, not with the level of certainty he has. 

“On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate Jennifer Aniston?” 

Sam turns, looks at Dean with a raised eyebrow, and asks, “Jennifer Aniston? Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Dean replies, looking up at the sky, hands folded behind his head. “I mean, she’s hot and all, but I never got why everyone went crazy over her. Besides, I bet all that money went right to her head.” 

“You don’t know that for a fact,” Sam argues, falling into his role as devil’s advocate without any hesitation. “She might be a real person under all that fame.” 

Dean makes a noise of disbelief, and says, “Stranger things have happened. What’s your rating?” 

Sam frowns, looks back at Dean, and says, “You go first. What would you rate her as?” 

“I asked you first,” Dean says. Sam’s just about to tell his brother that they aren’t teenagers any more, but then the ache in his head splits apart and all he can feel is pain. 

\--

Sam doesn’t see another psychic in his dreams. He doesn’t see anyone being possessed. He doesn’t see anyone he doesn’t know. 

Instead, Sam sees the yellow-eyed demon in its demonic form, ink-black cloud, and he sees himself and Dean, pressed against walls of a room Sam’s never seen before, never been inside of before. Dean looks half-dead, Sam doesn’t look much better, and then the demon’s saying something, doing something to them, and Dean’s sliding down a wall and Sam’s screaming and Dean’s dying and Sam’s eyes turn black and Dean’s dying and Sam’s gone insane and Dean’s dead and Sam might as well be and the demon’s laughing and Dean’s dead and Sam’s screaming. 

Sam’s screaming. Sam’s screaming and Dean’s hands are on his shoulders. Dean’s hands are, Dean’s, “ _Dean_?” 

“Yeah, Sammy, I’m here, fuck,” Dean’s saying, as he’s pulling Sam up off of the ground and wiping gravel from Sam’s knees and palms. “Come on, let’s get you inside.” 

\--

Sam’s sitting on the edge of his bed, staring blankly at the floor. Dean’s pulled one of the chairs around and is perched on the edge of it, watching Sam, because, even though Sam hasn’t said anything about this vision, Dean has to know it was different, worse. 

“Wanna tell me about it?” Dean finally asks.

Sam jumps, looks up, startled. “I,” he says, then shakes his head, looks back down. 

“Sam, come on. Tell me. You were _screaming_. You never screamed during the other ones.” 

Dean sits there, waiting, and finally Sam shifts, can’t take the silence anymore. “It had us in a room,” he says, and although he’s looking at the floor, he can feel, can see and hear Dean shift in his chair. “The demon. It was. It was killing you.” 

Sam can’t breathe, thinking about what he’d become in his vision, what he could become, if this future holds up and actually happens. For all that he knows he has this potential in him, this destiny, to turn evil, for all the things he’s done to keep that from happening, he’s never quite believed, somehow, that he would end up that way, not with Dean there, watching out for him, keeping him safe. 

“You were dying,” he says, breathless, eyes flicking from side to side, panicked, heart beating its way out of his chest. “You were dying and I couldn’t save you, and it kept laughing and I was screaming and I’m sorry, Dean, I’m sorry.” 

Sam trails off, nearly in tears, and Dean reaches forward, grabs his shoulder and squeezes hard enough to make Sam shudder. Just Dean being there, touching him, it helps, helps Sam put the vision into nice, square boxes in his mind, helps to objectify the vision as much as he can with it being _him_ and _Dean_ and Dean _dying_. 

“I think I might be able to figure out when or where, but not both,” Sam says. 

Dean punches him on the shoulder, lightly, and says, “Not now, dumbass. You need to sleep. You’ve been walking around like a lit fuse all day, and I’d say you just went boom. Sleep, and we’ll take a look at it tomorrow.” 

“It could _be_ tomorrow, Dean, I don’t,” Sam says, before Dean cuts him off. 

“Was it this room?” Dean asks. When Sam shakes his head, Dean says, “Then we’ll sleep, and we won’t leave until we’ve talked. Okay?” 

Sam’s not sure how Dean expects him to sleep after he saw _that_ , but Dean brushes his teeth and pisses in the sink and it’s so normal it almost makes Sam’s head spin, trying to decide what’s going on. Sam follows suit, using the toilet and lecturing Dean in his head, and when he goes back out into the room, Dean’s in Sam’s bed, and patting the empty space next to him on the mattress. 

“Worked last time,” Dean said, and if his tone’s modulated, careful, neither of them mention it. 

Sam crawls into bed next to Dean and falls asleep within minutes, ankle touching one of Dean’s. 

 

_30 April / 1 May_

“So, where do we have to go to find these guys?” Dean asks, leaning back in his chair, legs spread obscenely wide, one hand tapping out a rhythm on the inside of his thigh. 

Sam blinks, ignores the after-image he can see on his eyelids, and looks down at the map. He can feel the tips of his ears burning, turning bright red, but he swallows and says, “They should be out there tonight. I figure we go in around six, scope the area out, make sure there aren't any people waiting to be lit on fire, and wait for them.” 

Dean hums, thoughtful, but then nods. “Sounds like a plan, Sammy-boy. Dinner first? We have diner, diner, or, let’s see, diner.”

Sam pretends to think, finally says, “I don’t know. Let’s try, hm, the diner?”

Dean laughs, stands up, and smacks Sam on the shoulder as he’s heading for the door. Sam doesn’t lean into the contact, doesn’t flinch, and does not, at all, watch the way Dean’s hips move as he’s walking. 

\-- 

It’s been getting worse all day, the heat inside of him. It reminds him of the last time they were branded, but it’s different as well, like this heat is building and building, has been built up and tended for so long that it’s getting ready to explode into the sky. He hasn’t asked Dean if Dean feels the same way, probably should, because the wall of light in Sam’s mind is starting to fragment, little pieces have been falling away all day, and a chunk came off at dinner, a chunk which reminded him of Macha’s words— _fire burn and flare up hotter_. What it means, Sam doesn’t know, but he does know it’s connected to the way he’s been feeling, warm and tense, itchy in his own skin, like something is growing inside of him and will want to be let out soon.

They go up on top of the hill, where some local cult apparently holds all of their rituals, take in the fire pit filled with ash that looks like it came from wood, not bone, take in the worn path of dirt among the grass, circular and narrow, and settle down to wait, sitting inside of a large ring of salt. 

Sam’s blood is burning in his veins, much too hot for comfort. Every muscle is tense, every nerve sending back signals to his brain, pain or pleasure, Sam’s not sure which at the moment, isn’t sure he cares either way. 

Next to him, Dean’s grinding his teeth, arms crossed and fingers digging into his skin. How Dean can be sitting there, so still, it blows Sam’s mind, but an hour or two later, an echo of voices drifts upwards, to where they are, and both of stand up and turn in sync. 

A line of people winds its way up the hill, all of them wearing simple clothing, jeans and cotton pants, t-shirts, nothing special. There must be fifteen, maybe twenty, of them, looks like an even number of men and women, and Sam turns, stands with his back to Dean’s, both of them holding guns and studying the crowd of supposed cultists as they form a loose circle around the fire pit and the Winchesters. 

One woman steps forward, and both brothers aim at her without thinking, guns flowing up in sync and without words. For some reason, that makes her smile, and she claps her hands together once and inclines her head at the two of them. 

“We’re pleased you came,” she says, and a few of the others titter. “The Morrigan told us to expect a bound pair, and.” 

Dean cuts her off, says, “Look, lady, I don’t know what the hell’s going on here. We came for something else, and now you mention that damned goddess? You gonna clue us in or do I have to start shooting?” 

She frowns, looks from Dean to Sam, and then says, as if that’s answered a question, “It must be the other, then.” She nods at Sam, asks, “You have a guess, I think?” 

Dean kicks Sam, mutters, “Wish you’d share, Sam,” and then shuts up. 

Sam can imagine the look on Dean’s face, winces, and looks at the woman. “We thought it was Macha, but we weren’t sure. I mean, she didn’t exactly introduce herself. But why are you. How do you know about that?” 

The crowd laughs, and then the sun drops below the horizon, flooding the sky crimson. The fire in Sam’s veins grows, spirals, until all he can feel is burning, like, this time, every inch of his skin is being branded. He drops his gun, drops to his knees, and the terrifying thing about all of this is that Dean’s done the same. They’re both weaponless, unable to defend themselves, and neither of them can move when the woman gestures and two men step forward, right over the salt, and kneel in front of the Winchesters. 

“Tonight is Beltain,” the woman says, and Sam could kick himself. Here they’ve been thinking it’s something to do with his birthday, with the demon, some kind of delayed hex, and he never even thought about tonight being one of the important dates in the Celtic calendar. 

Things start slotting into place, explaining the timing, the way he feels, so hot and aching, because this is the culmination of a ritual, started, he guesses now, now that the wall in his mind is starting to fragment and turn to fire in his bones, on Lughnasadh. Macha branded them together on the same night trial marriages begin, and now they’re feeling the effects, now that it’s Beltain. 

“And for our celebration, we are blessed enough to witness the joining of a bound pair,” the woman goes on, and if Sam had control of himself, he thinks maybe his blood would’ve run ice-cold at her words. 

The men, the ones from the crowd, they’re undressing Sam and Dean both, taking clothes off and folding them up, laying them to the side carefully. With every piece of material off of his skin, Sam breathes a little easier, until he sways backwards and his back brushes against Dean’s. The fire flares up inside of him even hotter, pulling a whimper from his throat, because all he can think of now is Dean, needing Dean, having to have Dean no matter what. Every cell in his body is aware of Dean, knows Dean is right there, but he can’t make himself move, can’t do more than _long_ to touch his brother. 

“The Beltain fire is different from all others,” the woman says, as the men help Sam and Dean stand up, “because it is our need-fire, the fire that blesses and protects us, the fire that ushers in the coupling of the Lord and Lady. It is a fire that stirs our passions, that heals our land, that keeps us safe.” 

She gestures, and a few of the others there step forward, arrange bundles of twigs and sticks in the fire pit. When it’s formed to their satisfaction, they step back into the circle and the woman leading takes a glass vial out of her back pocket and holds it up. 

“We celebrate life on Beltain, but we, here, in this place, in this group, also celebrate our goddess Morrigan, who watches over warriors and fighters, who gives guidance to seers and prophets, who causes confusion to her chosen’s enemies. She has sent her chosen pair to us, a seer and his protector, a warrior and his conscience, and we thank her for allowing us to witness the celebration.” 

Sam shivers, teeth aching at the feeling of heat coursing through his veins, and watches as she empties the contents of the vial over the wood in the fire pit. Judging by the acrid tang in the air, it was blood, and that’s not good, never good. 

She turns to face them, and says, eyes flicking between the two of them, “Two and two and two again, the festivals have come and gone, leading from Lughnasadh and the time of your joining to this Beltain day. With the lighting of the need-fire, the heat you’re both feeling will increase exponentially.” She stops, smiles, and says, “And the two will become one.” 

Sam tries to protest, tries to open his mouth, but he can’t, can only stand there and watch as she strikes a match and drops it, flame at the tip, onto the wood. It almost happens in slow motion and Sam fights, fights with everything in him to break out of this spell he’s under, but the match bounces off of one branch, onto another, and they both catch on fire. 

They both catch on fire, and it’s too late. 

\--

The heat inside of him breaks apart and climbs higher, flares hotter, until all he feels is fire. It’s as if he _is_ the flame, searching for air, but then someone’s touching him and the fire sings through his veins, turns him to face that person. 

He almost doesn’t recognise that he’s looking at Dean, not with the expression on Dean’s face, like Dean’s suddenly realised something, like he’s finally solved a puzzle that he’s been working on for weeks. 

“Sam,” Dean murmurs, and reaches up, cups Sam’s cheek, rubs his thumb over Sam’s cheekbone, hard pressure that makes the heat rushing through Sam’s body curl up and then combust. 

He tries to fight, tries to resist the call of the fire, but every second he’s rebelling from the spell, from the touch of the Morrigan, he feels weaker and weaker, insubstantial like ash, and he curses goddesses who can do things like this, who give him the choice to die or go along with what’s happening, the choice to fight and die or to stop fighting and let this happen. 

Sam doesn’t want to die, and Dean looks like he accepts this, so Sam moves, presses his mouth against Dean’s, teeth clacking against teeth, lips splitting under the force, the bite, and it’s good for a handful of seconds, until something, the fire, tells him that he needs more, has to have more, this isn’t enough. 

Dean must be feeling the same thing, because the next thing Sam knows, he’s being pushed to the ground and Dean’s on top of him, stretching out the length of his body against Sam’s, still kissing him. Everywhere that they’re touching, the fire’s calmed a little, isn’t burning as hot, but it’s not enough, he’s still being driven to want more, to need more. 

He whimpers, shifts, and as his cock slides against Dean’s, Sam arches upwards, seeking friction, something more, something deeper and hotter. It’s good but not good enough, and Dean moves, slides backwards and licks Sam’s hipbone. Sam whines, high in his throat, so Dean does it again, this time with teeth, leaving white lines in his wake. 

If he could talk, Sam would be begging, pleading, so it’s almost a relief that he can’t, but Dean’s mouthing his thigh with a too-pleased expression on his face, under the burning, as if he knows. Sam growls, kicks Dean off and then pounces on his brother, straddling Dean’s legs. He’s distantly aware of chanting in the background, of people watching and the sudden tang of what he’s coming to associate with the smell of ‘goddess,’ but he doesn’t care, not with Dean under him and baring his teeth, fighting back. 

They fight, roll on the ground, first Sam on top, then Dean, then neither of them as they scrabble for an advantage, but eventually Sam pins his brother, perks of being taller and heavier. Sam nips Dean’s throat, growls as Dean struggles and then bites down on Dean’s collarbone. Dean stills, and Sam licks the bitemark, then looks down at his brother. 

There’s need, still, in the back of Dean’s eyes, that overwhelming fire burning both of them to a crisp with every second they’re not fucking, but also acceptance, and not the resigned kind Sam’s used to seeing. Instead, it’s almost eager, and so Sam leans down, kisses Dean, and then rolls them again, so that they’re back where they started, Sam’s back to the ground, Dean on top of him, bodies covered in dirt and salt, tongues in each other’s mouth, wet and desperate. 

He feels fingers stroking his dick and nearly bites Dean’s tongue off, but that’s nothing compared to the noise he makes when there’s a finger pushing inside of him, dry and moistened with nothing but the drops of pre-come Sam’s cock is leaking. He arches his back, snaps his hips up, and the finger sinks in, painfully fast, but even as it hurts, stings, it soothes the fire, enough so that Sam can open his eyes and remember how to talk. 

“Dean,” he breathes. “Dean,” like that’s the only word he knows, the only word that the fire will allow him. 

Dean smiles, licks the patch of skin closest to his mouth, and presses words like kisses into Sam’s arm. “It’s going to hurt, Sam, I’m sorry, I can’t,” and then there’s another finger pressing into his ass. 

The whine turns into a strangled groan as Dean’s fingers brush up against something, make the fire inside burst into sparks. “Oh, _fuck_ , do that again,” Sam says, and then frowns when he hears laughter, knows it didn’t come from Dean because he can’t take his eyes away from Dean’s face. 

\--

Dean stretches him like he’s done this before, like he knows what he’s doing, and that makes the brands scattered on Sam’s chest ache, send slivers of ice into his body and through the fire. As Dean’s murmuring something about things hurting, about trying to go slow and how Sam needs to breathe through it, Sam digs his fingers into Dean’s shoulders, lets his jagged nails catch the skin and hook in, draw blood. Dean hisses, and then there’s wide, blunt pressure at Sam’s ass. 

The fire, it’s trying to tell him something, that this is what he needs, that this is what will make it all better, and so when Dean starts moving slow, Sam grits his teeth, lifts his hips, and takes Dean in to his balls. It hurts, he can feel it send pain shooting across his nerves, but the fire’s soothed into slow, steady burning, not the explosions, the pressure, of before. 

“Told you to go slow,” Dean breathes, body tense, almost shaking. “You can’t ever just fucking listen to me, can you.” 

It’s not a question, but Sam tilts his head, looks at his brother, and bares his teeth. “Shut up and _fuck me_.” 

Dean acts as if he’s taken off-guard for a split-second, but then he’s pulling out and pushing back in again, slow, letting Sam get used to the feeling, the rhythm. He ignores Sam’s pleas, his growled curses and bitten-off threats, and speeds up only when he wants, as if he was just waiting, drawing it out longer. 

Sam doesn’t care, not when Dean’s fucking him, hard and fast, as desperate as the fire spiralling through both of them. The sounds they’re making, skin on skin, mouth pressed to mouth, twine upwards and outwards with the crackling sound of the bonfire, with people singing, melding with the smell of fire and smoke and sweat and Dean, until Sam can’t focus on anything except his brother. 

Dean’s hand is pressed on the ground, giving him leverage, while the other’s on Sam’s hip, thumb stroking the skin over Sam’s hipbone raw. Dean’s eyes are open, pinned on Sam’s, and he smells like gun oil and salt, tastes like beer and sweat under Sam’s lips. 

“Dean, _fuck_ ,” Sam yelps, when Dean’s hand moves and curls around Sam’s dick, starts stroking in rhythm to the thrusts of Dean’s cock inside of him. 

“Gotta come,” Dean pants, hips snapping with brutal precision, fucking Sam hard and deep, brushing against his prostate with every thrust, until Sam can’t do more than whine, arch up into Dean’s fist, and let his body break down into fire and need. 

_DeanDeanDean_ pulses through him, like his heartbeat has a voice that cries out for Dean. _DeanDeanDean_ , over and over again, until it’s more than just splitting apart inside of him and is coming up and out of his throat, “Dean, Dean, Dean,” again and again.

“I’ve got you, Sam,” Dean breathes. “I’ve got you. It’s all right, just fucking come on and come already, _please_.” 

Sam’s teeth snap together, every muscle in his body tenses, and then he’s coming in spurts all over Dean’s fist, his own stomach. The fire inside of him dances and then piles together, and he screams, spine-bending, as it rushes over him and out of his mouth. 

Dean’s rhythm is stuttering, pushing his cock in as far as it will go and then looking to go deeper, and he comes, spills hot and wet inside of Sam, before Sam passes out, the taste of ash in his mouth. 

\--

Sam wakes up slowly, opens his eyes and can’t seem to focus on anything. 

“Take your time,” a feminine voice says, and Sam fights harder, eventually sits up and looks at a woman. He can’t seem to place her, but then he looks around, sees the bonfire still going, sees people on top of the hill, watching him and Dean, unconscious next to him, and he turns back to the woman so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. 

“What happened?” he asks, rubs his forehead. 

She smiles, reaches out and wipes something off of his cheek. “You joined,” she says simply. “It was beautiful. The Morrigan picked a good pair. The two of you work very well together.” 

Sam stares at her, then drops his head, covers his face with his hands, and swears under his breath. Not only did he and Dean just have sex, as if that isn’t bad enough, but there were people _watching_ it happen. 

\--

He’s mortified, dresses in his clothes as soon as someone brings them over, unable to look anyone in the eyes. Sam’s wrinkling his nose at the feeling in his ass, completely ignoring just what that feeling is, and trying to assess the assorted aches, burns, and bruises all over his body, what kind of liabilities they’ll be in a hunt, and then Dean grumbles, rolls over and seems to wake up near instantly. 

Dean sits up, takes the situation in with a glance, raises an eyebrow when Sam meets his eyes then looks away, and holds his arms out for his clothes. He doesn’t say anything until he’s shrugging his jacket on, then asks, “Is there anything else we should know about this?” as if he’s on a job, calm. 

Sam gapes, but the woman smiles and presses a small jar of ash into Dean’s hands. “This will bring you luck and health,” she murmurs. “It was our honour to witness your joining. The ritual is done, now, though the Morrigan, who can say if she’s going to stay away?” The woman looks between the two of them and adds, “A warrior and a seer. Not only that, but a warrior who fights the supernatural and a seer who has visions of death. I think she’ll keep an eye on you two.” 

Dean rolls his eyes, says, “Great,” like he’s not at all enthused, and then turns, pushes Sam’s shoulder lightly. “Come on, Gigantor. Let’s roll.” 

\--

Sam fidgets for the first forty miles away from the cultists, neo-pagans, the people who had to've lured them here, whatever they’re calling themselves these days, his eyes flicking between the scenery flying by outside and Dean, who’s humming along to ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ like the song isn’t seventeen minutes long. Dean doesn’t seem to notice Sam’s eyes, doesn’t seem to care that they just had _sex_ , and it blows Sam’s mind that Dean can just, can just sit there and drive, no destination in mind, like this is just another morning. 

“Dude, what?” Dean finally says, though Sam’s relatively sure it has more to do with Sam turning off Iron Butterfly than anything else. Sam huffs, folds his arms across his chest, and looks out of the window. “Sam,” Dean says. “Come on. What the hell’s going on?” 

“What’s going on?” Sam replies, incredulous and shocked and ignoring the twinge in his belly provoked by Dean’s voice, low and gravelly and warm. “ _What’s going on_? Dean. Dean, come _on_.” 

Dean shrugs, and this time, when he speaks, the warmth is gone, replaced by something blank, careful. “Look, I don’t know why you’re freaking out about it. It’s not like we could’ve done anything,” and Sam tilts his head, because Dean sounds almost bitter now. “Just, I don’t know. Just try and forget about it.” 

Sam gapes, because there’s no way in _hell_ he’s ever going to be able to forget that he fucked his brother. His _brother_ , for God’s sake, and God’s, fuck, that’s incest and it’s illegal and immoral and maybe it’s a good thing their dad’s not around to see this, because what he would do, Sam doesn’t want to think about it, and it doesn’t matter that Macha made them, does it, because he could’ve died instead, died and—

“Sam, breathe,” Dean says, words falling right into Sam’s ear.

Sam blinks, because he’s on his knees in the grass on the side of the road, the Impala’s parked with her hazards flashing, and Dean’s crouched right next to him, one hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam flinches, jerks away from Dean’s touch, and he doesn’t need to look at Dean to know that Dean’s just cleared his expression. He doesn’t need to see his brother to know that Dean’s closing himself off, retreating, and what does that mean? Joined and bound? Was this what that woman was talking about, what Macha wanted to see happen? 

“On the up side,” Dean says. 

“What up side?” Sam snaps, cutting Dean off, stopping his brother mid-sentence. “Please, Dean, tell me what up side there could possibly be to this.”

Dean exhales, stands up and moves back, away, from Sam, and it hurts, down deep inside of Sam’s lungs. “The brands are gone. Well, most of them. The one on our backs is still there. Well, the one on mine is, and it hurts like a motherfucker every time you freak out, so could you calm down? Please?” 

Sam looks up, startled that Dean’s admitting to feeling pain, and he flows to his feet, asks, “How bad is it? Do you need something; we have some cream I could put on it, but I don’t know if,” and stops when Dean actually lets out a smile. 

“Thank you,” Dean says, and Sam just stands there, confused beyond belief, as Dean trudges back to the Impala. “Coming?” he calls out over the roof of the car, and Sam turns, shrugs, and nods. 

\--

Sam lies in bed and stares at the ceiling. Any other motel, he thinks, would have a stuccoed ceiling, or maybe tiles, but this one’s flat, smooth. It doesn’t leave him anything to focus on, any shapes to decipher or squares to count, and he can’t get away from his thoughts without the distraction. 

Most of his thoughts are still the freaked out variety, he can accept that; they’re repetitions of earlier thoughts but calmer, without the tinge of hysteria. He’s trying to figure out what God would think of this, what Macha’s intentions were, how they could possibly ignore this and move on, like Dean suggested. At the same time, he shies away from the memories of what it felt like to have Dean move deep inside of him, to have Dean that close, the pains and stings in his body from fucking, the ache in his thighs and ass, the throbbing from bruises and teeth-marks. 

Dean flops over in bed, says, “Stop thinking, you’re keeping me up.” 

Sam shivers, hearing Dean’s voice all sleep-worn and tired, and licks his lips, swallows to try and moisten his suddenly dry throat. “Sorry,” he mutters, and finally falls asleep when he’s reciting the Constitution to himself, right in the middle of the fourteenth amendment. 

 

_2 May_

“Happy birthday,” Dean says, and throws something on Sam’s bed. Whatever it is, it’s sharp, and one corner hits Sam’s shin. 

“Ow,” Sam mutters, emerging from under the blanket, hair sticking every which way. He blinks blearily at Dean, who’s looking at him with something approaching amused fondness, until Dean realises that Sam’s watching, at which point Dean smiles big and clears his face, his eyes, of anything except amusement. 

They haven’t said anything more about what happened on that hill yesterday morning, and Sam’s more than all right with that. 

“Picked it up last time we swung by the Roadhouse,” Dean says, still standing at the foot of Sam’s bed, arms crossed and waiting. “I know it isn’t much,” he adds, then trails off as Sam picks up the present wrapped in last month’s newspaper. 

It feels like a book, and while that’s predictable, not that Sam minds, the actual book isn’t at all. “ _The Complete Compendium Maleficarum_ ,” Sam breathes, paging through the text, eyes scanning the Latin. He notices some hand-written notes scribbled in the margins on certain pages, thinks they look vaguely familiar, but it’s not until he’s looking at the inside of the front cover that he swallows, traces over the spindly letters. 

“How’d you get Jim’s book?” Sam asks, finally looking up at his brother. “The other hunters, the ones that were closer, that burned his body, they took them all. And this book, Jim gave it to another priest when we were still kids, Dean.” 

Dean’s grinning, just a little, because he must know he’s done good. “You have your contacts, I have mine. Happy birthday,” he says again, and hovers for a moment before he goes into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. 

Sam strokes the cover, pages through the book again, slower this time, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, they’ll be all right, be able to move past everything that’s happened the past year. 

 

_21 June / 22 June_

Sam whimpers, trying to bury his head deeper into the pillows. 

They’re in Michigan and trying to clear out an abandoned copper mine of ghosts—or, rather, they would be if Sam wasn’t in so much pain. He has a fever, again, the first one since Beltain and Macha, feels as if his body’s burning up, and even Dean’s starting to look worried, when Sam can work up the nerve to look at his brother. 

It’s not that Dean’s doing anything, but the light in the room hurts, makes his head ache, even though they’ve put up sheets and quilts over the window, unplugged everything electronic, and it’s mostly pitch-black. It’s not just the light, because the light makes his head ache but looking at Dean makes Sam want to get out of bed and touch Dean, wrap himself in Dean’s arms, wrestle Dean to the floor and tear Dean’s clothes off, mark his brother. 

The feeling is so intense that it almost rivals the fever, and Sam’s not sure which one’s responsible for making his cheeks turn red and making curls stick to the nape of his neck, glued there by sweat. 

When the moon rises, Sam lets out a ragged groan as the pain gathers in his one remaining brand, and he reaches back to get his jeans and boxers away from the brand, from the way it’s pulsing and throbbing, like it’s trying to break out of Sam’s skin. 

Dean reaches to help him and his touch on Sam’s back makes Sam flinch and whimper again, because it feels so good, and if he’s not careful, if he’s not strong enough, he’s going to start begging. 

“Fuck,” Dean whispers, and Sam stiffens as Dean swipes a finger across Sam’s brand. “ _Jesus_ ,” Dean says. 

Sam hears Dean moving around, doing something, and he screws his eyes shut, turns his head, and asks, “Dean?” 

“It’s just yours,” Dean replies after a moment. “It’s just, Sam, what the hell?”

Sam thinks that over, wonders if he’s supposed to get some kind of answer from that, and when he decides that, no, he couldn’t have been expected to, he asks again, “Dean?” 

“Your brand,” Dean says. “It’s split open. It’s bleeding.” 

Sam sits up, hisses at the pain, and reaches back, feels liquid on his brand, and when he sniffs his finger, pokes out his tongue and tastes, his mouth goes dry. 

“What does that mean?” Sam asks. 

Dean shrugs, says, “Lie back down. I’ll grab the ointment.”

\--

Sam’s face is pressed in the pillows and Dean’s rubbing Ben-Gay into Sam’s upper back, shoulders, neck. It feels so good, the stinging sensation from the lotion and the way Dean’s hands seem to make the fever die down. Sam falls into some sort of blissed out, feverish trance, and so when Dean’s hands pause, still, he doesn’t do more than hum, as if to say, ‘ _Why are you stopping?_ ’ 

Dean chuckles, and the noise goes straight to Sam’s dick, which, Sam suddenly realises, is hard, painfully hard, caught in his jeans and trapped against the mattress. 

“Hold on,” Dean says, and Sam swallows, awake now, because that tone of voice isn’t one he’s heard from Dean, except from that night on the hill in Tennessee. 

He waits, anxious though he couldn’t say why, tries to pretend he isn’t, but then there’s something wet sliding down the curve of his spine, curling around the lines of the brand. Sam swallows, presses his entire body into the mattress like it might open up and pull him in, and then he realises, “Holy shit.” 

Dean’s tongue. Dean’s tongue is sliding down his back, licking up the sweat from Sam’s fever, and drinking up the blood his brand is leaking. Dean’s tongue, and Dean’s hands are wide and strong, holding Sam’s hips to the bed. 

There’s another chuckle, this one darker, and Sam would think Dean’s been possessed if he knew the room wasn’t salted and warded against demons. 

“Dean?” Sam asks, whisper-soft. “Dean, what are you doing?” 

“It’s helping,” Dean replies, quiet, though not as quiet as Sam. “Shut up and try to stop angsting.” 

Sam’s about to argue, to say that he’s not angsting, definitely not more than the situation calls for, but then Dean rakes teeth across the brand and the sensation takes his fever and turns it molten. 

\--

Dean mouths the brand, murmurs words like prayers into Sam’s skin, for how long, Sam’s not sure, not sure he cares. His blood is burning and keeps pushing out in the lines of the brand like that’s the only way he’s not dying, turned to ashes from the inside out, and when he can’t take the heat anymore, when it’s addled his mind and gone deep to the core of what he is, who he is, paths it’s been carving out and places it’s been settling in for almost a year now, Sam bucks Dean off, turns, and blindly falls to the floor. 

“Dean,” he says, desperation tinging his words, and then Dean’s there, underneath him, solid and sane and wrapping his legs around Sam’s, flipping them so Dean’s on top and the motel floor is hard and cold under Sam’s back. “Dean, God.” 

“Not God, Sammy,” Dean mutters, biting Sam’s neck, smoothing the sting with his tongue, hands all over Sam’s body, grinding down against Sam’s erection. “Not, _shit_ , not Him, don’t care, not when you’re, fuck, you’re.” 

They rut against one another like they’re starving and this is food, and when Sam comes, arching up into Dean, baring his throat, his brand stops aching and the fever dies down, soothed back into his bones. 

\--

“We should talk about this,” Sam says, half an hour later, half an hour of silence, of lying on the floor and looking up at the ceiling with Dean next to him, both of them still in their jeans, damp and cold and sticky with come. 

“Sam,” Dean says.

He sounds tired, sounds so fed up, that Sam shuts up for a minute, but Sam says, “We should,” a handful of minutes later. “I mean. With the. What Macha did.” He takes a deep breath, and says, “It feels better when you. I mean, just touching helps, but when you. It helps more. I felt like I was going to burst into flames. How did you.” 

Sam closes his eyes, wants to hide away, because he doesn’t stutter, but what he’s talking about, it’s sex with his brother, and God forgive him, he wants it. Needs it, it seems like, thanks to Macha, but he wants it, too, and that’s worse, somehow.

“I can tell when you’re upset, y’know,” Dean says. “My brand aches. Every moment I’m not touching you, it aches.” Dean sounds so stripped down, bare, and Sam wants to look at him, but he can’t, can’t invade Dean’s privacy like that, not when Dean sounds like this. “What she did, Sam, it started building that first night. You might be the smart one, but you were an idiot to ignore it and you’re being an idiot if you think you can fight against this.” He pauses, and Sam can feel his brother searching for words and the strength to say them, before Dean asks, “Do you really want to, that much?” 

Sam doesn’t know how to respond to that. 

 

_5 July_

The question has been bouncing around Sam’s head for two weeks now, and he still isn’t any closer to an answer he can accept unconditionally. Dean hasn’t brought it up, like he knows Sam’s working through things and is willing to give him space, but he’s doing little things differently now. When they go out to eat and drink, Dean isn’t flirting as much, pretty much not at all, and he keeps an eye on Sam if they get separated, coming over and interrupting if it looks like someone’s getting too close to Sam. Sam would think it’s possessive or jealous or like Dean’s claiming territory, but he feels the same way, keeps it in check and never says anything, but he’s immensely glad that Dean’s backed off from the incessant womanising. 

He doesn’t mind most of it, likes the way they move so in sync now, so in tune, but it’s the sex he’s having issues with. Dean is his brother, and while part of him is relieved, because Dean _knows_ him, down to his toes, because Dean understands and because Dean’s there already, all of the time, part of him is still minorly freaking out for all of the same reasons. 

“You changed my diapers,” Sam finally says, when they’re driving through North Dakota on their way to a potential wendigo. “You practically raised me, Dean. Doesn’t that weird you out at all?”

“Just means I know you,” Dean replies, almost instantly, without looking at Sam.

Sam wonders if Dean can read his mind now, too. 

 

_16 July_

Sam lifts his eyes from the glass in front of him again, looks over at the bar, where Dean’s flirting with a woman who shouldn’t be able to stand upright, not if the laws of physics are still in place. Dean’s ignoring him, should be able to feel Sam’s annoyance and anger and worry through the brand, but Dean’s still standing there, talking and smiling and laughing, letting that woman look at him through her eyelashes, letting that woman touch him every so often, leaning in and giving Dean the chance to look down her shirt. 

“He wouldn’t be over there if you did what you’re supposed to,” someone says from behind Sam, and he turns, glares at the girl when he looks into her eyes, falls into endless, age-old space. 

“I wouldn’t care if you kept your nose out of our business,” Sam snaps back, and he watches the girl warily as she moves, sits down across from him. 

She puts her elbows on the table and says, “I’m just trying to save your lives, Samuel. What was it she told you, up there on the hill, a seer and a warrior? I’ve taken interest. If I hadn’t, if I hadn’t done anything, you’d be getting ready to die next time you meet the demon.” 

Sam frowns, swallows as he remembers the vision he had in April. “Joining and binding us,” Sam says slowly, “it’ll save us? Why?” 

She smiles, tilts her head, and says, “You’ll figure it out, Samuel. But more importantly, why aren’t you over there with him? Why do you deny what you want so badly?”

“Because you did it to me,” Sam mutters, playing with his glass, spinning it and watching the light catch on the whisky still inside. “If you’d kept your nose out of it, I wouldn’t be feeling like this, not at all. It’s not natural and it’s not _natural_.” 

She laughs, and the sound echoes in Sam’s ears like the crackle of fire, like the roar of blood in his ears when hunts go wrong and he’s fighting for his life. “Natural? Samuel, _you_ are not natural. Why should anything else in your life be?” and though the words are softly spoken, tempered with care, Sam flinches. 

She exhales, reaches across the table, and touches his wrist. “Samuel, you want him and he wants you. You love each other, it’s in every thing you do, in the air you both breathe. Perhaps I pushed you together when you wouldn’t have been, otherwise, but is it so very startling?”

Sam looks up at her, studies her, and when she leans across the table and kisses his temples, he lets her. “For once in your life, Samuel, please. Stop thinking and just act.” 

Dean’s at the table, then, as if he saw the kisses, and he looks angry. “Sam?” he asks.

The girl smiles brightly, stands up, and pulls Dean’s face down, kisses his temples as well. “He’s stubborn, but he’s coming around,” she says, and when Dean’s eyes narrow, she winks, waves, and disappears right in front of them. 

“Dean, meet the Morrigan,” Sam says, belatedly, leaning back in his chair. 

\--

They leave the bar an hour later, after Dean’s won a couple hundred bucks at the pool table and Sam’s had enough to drink that he’s loose-limbed, not drunk but comfortable. The Impala’s parked out behind the bar, and they’re walking through an alley to get to it, and Sam stops, pushes Dean against the wall, grabs his collar. 

“You don’t hate me?” he asks, eyes wide and pleading. “I’ve taken _everything_ from you, and now I’ve taken this, too, and you didn’t have a choice. Dean, you should hate me.” 

Dean smiles, hard and sharp, and seeing it flays Sam to the bone. “I think it’d be easier if I did.” 

Sam stares, then nods and licks his lips. “Okay,” he says, licks his lips again. “Okay,” and then he’s kissing Dean, licking his way into Dean’s mouth and pressing Dean into the wall as their tongues meet, dance around each other. 

He’s losing his mind, doing this here, pushing Dean against a wall outside of bar and kissing Dean like their lives depend on it, but he wants to, wants _Dean_ , and maybe the Morrigan was right, maybe he needs to stop thinking about it and just go with it, because this, both of them, on an ordinary night in an ordinary city, it’s what he’s been dreaming about for weeks. 

\--

Sam’s not sure how they made it back to their motel, but, with Dean’s hands undoing his jeans and his pushing Dean’s shirt off, he’s not sure he cares. 

Once they’re both naked, clothes leading from the door to the bed, Dean pushes Sam on to the bed, on his back, and climbs up Sam’s body, hands mapping out the breadth and width of Sam’s chest, shoulders, hips, while his tongue and teeth and lips trace out new lines over Sam’s mouth, neck, ears. 

“Dean, come on,” Sam says, though what he wants Dean to do, he doesn’t know, doesn’t care. He just knows there needs to be more, not because of any fever in his muscles or bones, but because he wants more, wants it like he hasn’t wanted anything else, ever. “Dean, please.” 

“Shh,” Dean whispers, words falling feather-soft onto Sam’s lips. “I wouldn’t. I’ll. I know, Sam. I know.” 

Sam lies there and lets Dean coax out words, broken and mangled apart from Dean’s name, the only word Sam can seem to say without trouble, lets Dean work out whimpers and moans and growls. Dean stretches him open and then fucks him, slow and gentle, nothing at all like the frantic, desperate sex on that hill, and Sam could almost cry with the emotions he sees swimming in Dean’s eyes, the feelings he’s getting from Dean, thanks to the brand. 

“Dean,” he whispers, and moves his hands from where they’ve been digging nails and fingerprints into Dean’s back, places them on Dean’s cheeks, strokes Dean’s cheekbones. “ _Dean_.” 

Sam’s content to move with Dean, to let his eyelids hover closed for too long, to arch and let the feeling, the sensation, sink into him, but then one of Dean’s hands closes around his cock and Sam’s spine bends as he starts to pant, muscles tense and shaking. 

He comes with a shudder, quiet and gasping, and his breathing isn’t entirely back to normal when Dean comes inside of him. Sam almost gasps again, because his brand is sending spiralling waves of something that feels like light-headed euphoria through his body, and from the way Dean swallows, forehead pressed against Sam’s, he feels it as well. 

\--

They didn’t use a condom; it hurts when Dean pulls out and Sam doesn’t like the feeling in his ass, doesn’t like the way his own come, painted across his stomach, is starting to itch, but he doesn’t do more than reach down, grope for a t-shirt and wipe himself off before pulling Dean next to him. 

“We don’t have to cuddle, do we?” Dean asks, like that might be the worst thing in the world, fate worse than death, but when Sam twines his legs in with Dean’s and nudges his face onto Dean’s neck, mouth laying little, nipping kisses on the juncture of neck and shoulder, Dean doesn’t move. 

Sam drifts, not fully asleep, not fully awake, mind in a post-coital daze of tired happiness, but Dean eventually asks, voice full of hesitant resignation, “You’re not going to regret this in the morning, are you? You _did_ have a lot to drink, and the Morrigan talked to you, I.” 

He trails off as Sam moves, pressing himself closer to Dean. “Shut up,” Sam says, exasperated. “I’m trying to cuddle.” 

“I don’t cuddle,” Dean says, sounding grumpy, though Sam can feel Dean trying not to smile. 

“Well, I do, so suck it up and get used to it,” Sam snaps back, though his tone’s far too content to hold any rebuke. “And if you don’t whine about it, I’ll even suck your dick in the morning.” 

There’s a pause, and then one of Dean’s arms winds around Sam’s shoulders. “Shutting up,” Dean says, and Sam falls asleep mid-laugh. 

 

_1 August_

“Are you sure?” Sam asks, looking over at Dean. 

Dean rolls his eyes, leans over and smacks the back of Sam’s head. “Dude, for the eight-millionth time, if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have driven us here, would I? Now stop fussing and get out of the car.” 

Sam rolls his own eyes, gets out of the Impala, and waits for Dean to round the car, before the two of them walk into the tattoo parlour. Sam lays out the design they want on the counter, flame inside of triangle with a circle on top, inside of a circle, tells the guy where they want it—Sam’s left arm, Dean’s right—and when the tattoo artist takes them into the back to get it done, Sam looks over at Dean and grins, because Dean’s looking back at him, smile just as wide.


End file.
